Wired Magazine and Amy Wallace Drink Paul Offit’s Kool-Aid

Posted Oct 21 2009 12:00am

By J.B. Handley

Unbelievable. That was my first reaction to reading Wired Magazine’s new cover story on vaccines and autism that you can read HERE. It’s not a thoughtful look at both sides of the debate. It’s not a piece providing a new spin on a well-known conflict. It’s simply a regurgitation of Paul Offit’s talking points that he’s been dishing out to the uninformed media now for years. Ms. Wallace didn’t just drink Offit’s Kool-aid, shit, she scooped the Kool-Aid out of the rusty old bucket to make enough for everyone!

The article is so misguided, one-sided, lacking in basic research, and ultimately useless, I found myself yearning for Gardiner Harris, Anahad O’Connor, or some of the other Vaccine Patriots (HERE) at the New York Times to spew out something new – at least their stories have the occasional original thought.

Ms. Wallace appears to have gone exclusively to Google University to research her feeble attempt at describing a very complex topic. Aside from a low-profile visit to Autism One, it seems Ms. Wallace never actually bothered to interview anyone from our side of the fence, perhaps she was simply too busy hanging out at Paul Offit’s Rotateq-funded mansion? Did you get a call or an email? I sure didn’t. Ms. Wallace, I would have welcomed you to spend a day at my house with my son to get, I don’t know, maybe a different take on the topic?

I grow so weary of pointing out the same logical fallacies, misstatements, and outright factual errors that many journalists make when covering this debate, it’s going to be a struggle for my stamina to analyze her tripe in detail. To save us all some time, I’ve decided to offer up her “Top 10 blazingly untrue passages” for you to enjoy, along with some comments -- feel free to add a few more of your own.

1. “To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that was used in vaccines until 2001) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems.”